MIND MAPPING FOR ONLINE ARTICLE WRITING

MIND MAPPING FOR BRAINSTORMING CONTENT CREATION

A little while ago I was ripping out my hair trying to think of new subject matter that had not been done a thousand times before. I spent hours trolling Youtube and I came across an article by Dr Tony Buzan about Mind Mapping for generating fresh ideas and planning projects.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I have been struggling with content creation. You get to point with your blogs where you wonder how you can possibly come up with a new article that is fresh information.

Dr Tony Buzan, is a neurologist, with credentials in psychology etc. (In other words, he is an overachiever) 🙂 I first watched a half hour lecture with Dr Buzan. Sadly, I was less than impressed with the delivery of his lecture to his audience, he was arrogant, passive aggressive and insulting to many who had obviously paid to be at this lecture. I found myself so annoyed with him that I dropped out of the video after 15 minutes not wishing to view any further.

I came back to Youtube after being distracted by emails and I clicked on another video by Dr Buzan, it was a short presentation on Mind-mapping and it was captivating. Despite my dislike of this man, I watched the 5-minute video through to the end. The video was interesting enough for me to do my own mind map for content creation because I was struggling to find topics that have not been done before.

Feel free to click this video it is really interesting.

BRAINSTORM BUSINESS IDEAS

Crazy as it sounds Mind mapping for releasing your inner genius works, or rather it did for me. I wanted to do something that has not been done at least a thousand times before. It was amazing to brainstorm ideas with this tool.

So after watching the video by Tony Buzan, I started my map and really struggled to come up with this first diagram.

My website is about finding online jobs for wealth creation. The central focus of my website is to present ways to make money from online jobs. So as you can see the central spot is my website and it is all about JOBS and inside the circle is a home where my business resides. It means nothing to you, but it is symbolic for me.

With mind mapping you are supposed to let your subconscious mind bring ideas to the surface, you can use colours which stimulates your subconscious and you can only use single words for your concepts. The reason is you want the concepts to be broad so that they can lead to the expansion of ideas. Too many words will inhibit your subconscious mind and we want to liberate our minds and not confine them. Images are encouraged because they also stimulate the mind.

I knew 2 things, I could begin my map with, of course, Wealthy Affiliates for generating income and Fiverr. (Nothing new here) I really struggled with finding more jobs, so I went back to my day job at Scots College and completely forgot about the mind map. A half hour later I thought, “Hey why don’t I put down mind-mapping and web-design”, thinking I can always change them down the track. So here I had my first tier of thoughts and I am not very bright so I struggled to get these 4.

Once again my job interfered with my thoughts on mind mapping. An hour later I had a break in my workload which coincided with a flood of ideas, so I started jotting down ideas as they popped into my head. Suddenly my map expanded looking like this.

Now the words may not look like much to you, but to me, they bring back the original thought. This process is called a memory trigger. We all think differently, so you would probably use a different word for the same idea. Now I have gone from 4 ideas to 16 ideas. In the following hour, it went to 47 ideas and that number will probably double or triple before I am finished.

Now I have significant source ideas for my content creation.

You tell me, do you think mind-mapping intuitively leads you into your areas of interest and unleashed your inner creativity? Or do you think it is all a load of bunkum like I did before I tried it?

BEST FREE MAPPING SOFTWARE

This is my mind map so far for content creation it got too big for a hand sketch. So I downloaded a 30-day free mind mapping app called Mindjet MindManager to do the job a lot quicker, (but less fun).

There are a host of mind mapping software packages that will give you a few weeks to a month free to try before you buy. I chose Mindjet MindManager because it got some of the best reviews. Once I tried it I did not need to use the tutorial. The software is very intuitive and I started and finished my mind map in 15 minutes. Here is a list of other software you can download free online. You might like a different one that is more appealing to you:

iMindMap

Mindomo

Bubbl.us

X Mind 8

Wise Mapping

Mindjet MindManager

MindGenius

Mindmeister

Plectica

Lucidchart

All of these packages are excellent and I am sure you will find one that suits you. Use the the try before you buy option because obviously some will be easier to use than others.

After a small investment of time on my app, I now have 52 ideas, and I just have to choose which idea gets written up first and ticked it off my list. Yesterday I was struggling for an idea, now it is just about choice.

I would love to hear your thoughts and I would like to know if anyone has heard of mind-mapping before?

Thanks for your time.

Coucka

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2 Comments

Hi Steven,
Nice to hear from you. I am glad to hear someone has used mind mapping before.
It is all new to me but fun to do especially to plan your next 12 months worth of articles for your website. I am now just working through my list from my mind map.
Cheers Coucka